Comparative morphology of quantifiers

It is shown that Malayalam quantifiers (more generally, Dravidian quantifiers) have a particularly ‘transparent’ morphology: the morphological make-up of the quantifiers indicates how the semantics of these forms comes about. (The insights obtained from their examination also lead us to some speculations about the ‘hidden’ morphology of some English quantifier forms.) An interesting non-correspondence with English is pointed out: Malayalam has two forms corresponding to the English form any, but they “cross-cut” the familiar ‘Polarity any/Free Choice any’ distinction in an intriguing way. Some general properties of quantifier forms that incorporate question-words are also pointed out.